Global Drug Policy Observatory

“Nothing is more timely than the establishment and operation of an observatory to provide analysis and to allow policy reforms to be based on evidence: evidence of failures and evidence of success”Ruth Dreifuss, former President of the Swiss Confederation

National and international drug policies and programmes that privilege harsh law enforcement and punishment in an effort to eliminate the cultivation, production, trade and use of controlled substances – what has become known as the ‘war on drugs’ – are coming under increased scrutiny. The Global Drug Policy Observatory aims to promote evidence and human rights based drug policy through the comprehensive and rigorous reporting, monitoring and analysis of policy developments at national and international levels. Acting as a platform from which to reach out to and engage with broad and diverse audiences, the initiative aims to help improve the sophistication and horizons of the current policy debate among the media and elite opinion formers as well as within law enforcement and policy making communities. The Observatory engages in a range of research activities that explore not only the dynamics and implications of existing and emerging policy issues, but also the processes behind policy shifts at various levels of governance.

GDPO Quarterly News – April – July 2019

As part of the Cannabis Innovate initiative, late April saw Martin, Dave and others associated with the project attend a workshop hosted by GDPO-Swansea University partner the Institute Scientifique, Université Mohammed-V de Rabat, Morocco. Back in Swansea in May, Dave lectured on ‘Drug Wars: From Reagan to Trump’ on PCS colleague Dr Luca Trenta’s module, Shadow Wars: US Presidents and Covert Action from the Cold War to Obama. As part of his work on the GDPO’s metrics project and as a member of a UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights delegation later that month he was also in Vienna to attend a UNODC hosted meeting on the ongoing review of the Annual Report Questionnaire;...To read more, and to see previous quarterly news reports, click here

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GDPO's Featured Publication

GDPO Research Associate Dr Chris Hallam's beautifully crafted monograph traces the history of the London 'white drugs' (opiate and cocaine) subculture from the First World War to the end of the classic 'British System' of drug prescribing in the 1960s. It also examines the regulatory forces that tried to suppress non-medical drug use, in both their medical and juridical forms. Drugs subcultures were previously thought to have begun as part of the post-war youth culture, but in fact they existed from at least the 1930s. In this book, two networks of drug users are explored, one emerging from the disaffected youth of the aristocracy, the other from the night-time economy of London's West End. Their drug use was caught up in a kind of dance whose steps represented cultural conflicts over identity and the modernism and Victorianism that coexisted in interwar Britain.